


really go wild, doin' it in style

by LydiaOfNarnia



Series: five times, one time prompts [5]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Dancing, Developing Relationship, Dorks in Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 10:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11599092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaOfNarnia/pseuds/LydiaOfNarnia
Summary: He rounds the corner to see Babe shimmying across the living room, coffee cup in one hand and half-eaten bagel in the other. He’s bopping to the beat, head bouncing up and down in a way that gives his bedhead a life of its own. He's still in his pajamas; his baggy t-shirt bears fresh coffee stains. Gene takes a moment to watch his boyfriend thrust and sway with moves that would make Patrick Swayze proud before finally clearing his throat.Babe starts; the coffee almost slips out of his hands again. He gapes at Gene like he's just been caught with his pants down, freezing in the middle of what promised to be a very impressive twist.“Babe,” Gene mutters, wondering if he's still dreaming, “can I ask what the hell you're doing?”(Five Times Gene Sees Babe Dancing, and the One Time He Joined In)





	really go wild, doin' it in style

**Author's Note:**

> written for a Tumblr prompt (that took me forever and a half to fill, I'm sorry): _"on my way to work today i've heard 'man i feel like a woman' by shania twain on the radio and my first thought was this is babe's song! this is the song babe dances to when he clears his apartment or cooks. so there's prompt idea: 5 times gene sees babe dancing and one time he joins?"_
> 
> Of course, the characters in this fic are based off of their fictional portrayals from the miniseries Band of Brothers, and I mean no disrespect to the real-life veterans!
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [renelemaires](http://renelemaires.tumblr.com/)!

_**Run Away With Me** _

Babe’s twenty-first birthday is a beach blowout affair involving fireworks, a live band, and a bouncy house.

Never mind that the live band is Ray Person’s, and by the third song everyone seems eager for them to get off the stage. Never mind that one of the fireworks almost blows up in Bill’s face, and Gene is pretty sure the bouncy house violates at least five zoning laws. The point is, there’s lots of people, good music (once the band plays their encore and the party switches to a boombox), and enough alcohol to kill a herd of elephants.

By eleven o’clock, Gene is ready to go home. He has a class tomorrow -- so does Babe, for that matter, but it’s not like he _cares_ \-- and he knows that the longer he sticks around someone will inevitably wind up hurting themselves in a fit of drunken stupidity, and it will fall to Gene to patch them up.

He doesn’t want to play doctor tonight. Especially not for the birthday boy.

He leaves his gift on the party table alongside the mountain of Babe’s other presents. He’s shown up, paid his respects, and now it’s time for him to go. All that’s left to do is say goodnight to Babe.

Gene turns to look for him, scanning the crowded beach for a telltale head of bright hair. He isn’t hard to spot. When Gene’s eyes fall on Babe, he feels his heart sinks down to his shoes.

He does _not_ want to have to stitch anyone up tonight. The last thing he’s going to be doing is cleaning sand out of cuts or wiping blood off of Babe’s face because he was too reckless to know where it it _not okay_ to dance.

“Babe!” he calls, stalking over to the long table that looks seconds away from buckling beneath the weight of three grown men. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the thrumming music. “Babe!”

The birthday boy pauses in his frenetic flailing to turn around. His eyes scan in front of him, and it takes a few seconds for him to realize he’s up significantly higher than anyone else at the party (save Bill and Julian, who probably dragged him up there in the first place). When he looks down and spots Gene, he breaks into a wide grin.

“Hey!” he exclaims, beginning to bounce once more. “Gene, come dance with us!”

Gene wouldn’t get on that table if his life depended on it. “Not a chance!” he hollers back, and reaches an arm up towards him. He hopes to either coax Babe down, steady him, or catch him should he take a tumble. Instead, Babe just seizes his hand and begins to hop enthusiastically.

It takes all of Gene’s effort not to roll his eyes. “Babe, get down!”

“No way!” Babe replies, looking thrilled with himself. His face looks bright red in the flickering light of the torches positioned throughout the beach, but Gene has little doubt most of that is due to alcohol. It’s the first time Babe’s been legally allowed to drink, and he’s gone all out. When he laughs, the sound bubbles over the roar of music like its own melody. “This is so much fun!”

“You’re gonna get hurt!” Gene retorts. A grinning Babe just shakes his head.

The music continues to ripple around them, shameless in it’s own bouncy pop melody. Gene takes stock of himself -- his arm outstretched with a bouncing Babe clinging to it, as he stands dead sober in a sea of drunken partygoers -- and wonders what he’s doing here. Were it anyone but Babe, he wouldn’t be here at all. He wouldn’t bother; he wouldn’t worry.

(Babe always has a way of dragging that extra _something_ Gene never even knew he had out for the world to see.)

He wants to leave. Then, he looks up at Babe again.

Silhouetted against a haze of bonfire and starlight, he is consumed by a warm glow that makes him luminous. The smile on Babe’s face is bright enough to light the entire midnight sky. His eyes reflect joy, exhilaration, and something else that makes Gene dizzy to look at. He is so…

 _Beautiful,_ Gene thinks, and feels his own cheeks flare with color.

He wants to say something, but doesn’t know what; doesn’t know how. He doesn’t get the chance, either, because not one second later Babe finally takes a step too far and winds up somersaulting over the edge of the table.

Gene doesn’t catch him like he hoped he would. Instead, he helps lift a moaning Babe out of the sand. Babe looks fine, and he’s not leaking crimson anywhere he shouldn’t be, but Gene still insists he sit down anyway. He presses a glass of water in his hands, warns him to sit the next few songs out, and finally bids Babe goodnight.

Before he can leave, however, Babe seizes hold of his hand and drags him back. “Gene,” he says, the picture of (drunken) seriousness. “Thanks for coming.”

Gene pauses for only a second before his lips quirk up in a small smile. “Happy birthday, Heffron.”

* * *

 

_**The Avengers** _

“Just for a few hours, Doc,” says Bill Guarnere over the phone that afternoon. “If anyone’s gonna be able to cheer him up, it’s you.”

Were Bill a little less persuasive, and Gene a little less soft-hearted, he wouldn't be stuck making dinner for a very depressed Babe Heffron that night. Saying “no” when it comes to Babe is a skill Gene has never learned. He has still yet to decide if this is a bad thing.

When Babe slumps through Gene’s doorway with a cloud of despair hanging over his head, he knows it’s going to be a long night.

“Cheer up, Heffron,” is the first thing he says. “I’m making pizza.”

(His first instinct had been to make comfort food from his own childhood. Then Gene realized that his grandmother’s gumbo recipe would leave poor Babe spitting fire and sobbing, so he settled for something a bit tamer.)

The fact that the idea of pizza manages to cheer Babe up only proves Gene’s point; one failed test is not a big deal. He knows Babe hasn’t been doing well in his physics class this semester, and that he studied hard for this test. Babe’s smart, however, and stubborn on top of that. Gene has no doubt that he’ll be able to pass one way or another. Failing a single test isn’t going to kill his grade.

Babe’s probably been told that enough times by now that he’s sick of hearing it. Instead of trying to give advice, Gene turns to the tried-and-true method of pizza and movies to cheer him up.

They’ve been sitting on the couch for a few hours by the time Babe finally feels ready to open up. Gene’s just happy it was that easy. Babe isn’t reserved as a rule, but when he feels like it he can shut down like a bad case of lockjaw. Half a pizza and two hours of Marvel movies is a small price to pay to coax Babe out of his bad mood.

“It’s just… I tried so hard, you know?” Babe sighs over the final scene of the Avengers crew celebrating their victory with shawarma. “Like, I really thought I’d pass. I studied hard. I felt good when I was taking it. But then I get the test back and I got a fifty-three? How does that even happen?”

Gene doesn’t say a word; he can tell Babe is going to carry on, no matter what he contributes.

“I worked hard. I did my best. That should be enough, right? _Wrong!”_ Gene leans back as Babe suddenly waves a finger in his face. “It’s not enough! You can do your best, but it can still not work out. And you know what? That _sucks.”_

Gene sighs, eyes drifting back towards the screen as the credits begin to roll. “So what are you going to do?”

The answer is obvious. _I’m going to try better next time._ Gene all but gave Babe the answer, he just has to fill in the blanks and _say it._

He doesn’t say it.

Babe hesitates for just a second before he suddenly springs off of the couch. His empty plate flutters to the ground, one couch cushion upended with his sudden movement. Gene blinks, baffled, but doesn’t get a chance to say a word before Babe suddenly begins to move to the beat of the credits theme.

“You know what?” he exclaims. “I’m gonna dance!”

“Dance?” Gene wonders if he missed sme crucial part of the conversation, because he feels lost. Babe Heffron is jamming out to _The Avengers_ theme in the middle of his living room, and Gene doesn’t know how their conversation got off course so quickly. “Babe, what the hell are you doing?”

“Endorphins!” is all Babe shouts. “Happy!” Then, after another few seconds of surprisingly-coordinated flailing, “Turn it up, Gene!”

Gene stares at Babe for a long, confused moment before he sighs and grabs the remote.

As the credits music fills his apartment, Gene can’t help the smile that splits his own face. Babe might not have all the right moves, but he’s a good dancer -- what’s more, a determined one. He’s so eager to cheer himself up that he’s practically rattling the floors. The neighbors are going to complain tomorrow, but Gene doesn’t care. Seeing Babe happy again is worth so much more than dinner and a movie.

* * *

 

_**Build Me Up Buttercup** _

The first time Gene spends the night at Babe’s place, he wakes up to the sound of _The Foundations_ blaring from the kitchen.

Groggily, he pushes himself up in Babe’s bed, allowing the sheets to fall from his bare chest. The room is too bright for his half-asleep brain to tolerate. With Babe missing, all Gene really wants is for him to return, just so they can stay in bed for a little while longer. It wouldn’t put a dent in both of their schedules for today, probably -- Gene doesn’t have to work until noon, and Babe has a day off from classes.

Then he becomes aware of a few new things -- the sun is high in the sky, Babe’s alarm clock reads that it’s nearly ten o’clock, and the smell of waffles is drifting through the open doorway.

It’s the last fact, more than anything else, that lures Gene out of bed. He is surrounded by the rollicking beat before he’s even two steps into the hallway. Slowly, he pads through Babe’s apartment until he reaches the kitchen door, where he stops and leans against the frame. He had expected something interesting from the idea of Babe cooking alone, but he’d at least thought Babe would get dressed first.

Instead, there Babe is, in nothing but his superhero boxers as he bounces in front of the stove. His feet are doing some weird shuffling motion that brings him dangerously close to falling face-first into the frying pan. Instead of using the fork in his hands to scramble the eggs he’s neglecting to watch, Babe has the handle to his lips and is mouthing along with the lyrics.

Gene crosses his arms and heaves a sigh. He doesn’t know why he’s so fond of Babe half the time; then he does something like this, and Gene remembers.

Only when Babe’s dancing feet spin him full circle around the kitchen, fork thrust in front of him like a baton, does he spot Gene. Babe freezes, eyes widening comically as his jaw falls open. He scrambles to right himself, and nearly falls on his ass as his feet slide out from under him. Only after he grabs hold of the counter to heave himself back upright and has manages to catch his breath does he find his voice.

“G-G-Gene -- I mean, _hey!_ Didn’t know you were awake yet…” He blinks at Gene like an alarmed owl, awaiting any reaction to his previous surefooted dance number.

Gene only raises an eyebrow. “Babe, I’m pretty sure your eggs are burning.”

As Babe yelps and scrambles to salvage what he can of their breakfast, Gene is unable to keep a smile from spreading across his lips.

* * *

 

_**Heart Attack** _

He isn't quite sure how Babe gets into his box of old CDs and albums, but Gene walks into the apartment to find the old playlist his sister put together for him blaring, and Babe twisting and bouncing around like he's trying to outdance an invisible crowd of competitors.

He doesn't really know what's going on, so for a second he just stops and watches. By now he's used to this. He often stumbles upon Babe doing something inexplicable; it manages to be funny, out of sheer bizarreness. Gene can't help but consider that a talent.

Finding Babe in his apartment when he's not there is no longer any sort of surprise either. Babe has made himself at home here; he lives here more than he does his place anyway. Him staying here full-time wouldn't be that much of an adjustment.

Babe notices him, but that doesn't stop him. Instead he points at Gene, mouthing the lyrics to the passionate song with a fervor that takes his boyfriend aback. Babe’s getting a bit too into it, shimmying his shoulders and swaying his hips in a way that makes him look both wild and a little silly.

Once again, just another misadventure in living with Babe Heffron. By now, Gene isn't even surprised.

He observes his boyfriend as Babe’s head banging comes perilously close to smashing his head into the wall. If he breaks the drywall again, Gene isn't about to pay to get it replaced.

“Be careful!”

The guitar solo picks up again, and Babe throws his entire body into leaping along with it. “I'm always careful!” he hollers, before flailing his arms like a bird trying to figure out how to fly.

Gene leans back against the wall and shakes his head, debating whether or not Babe will be disappointed when he finds out the next song on this album is a ballad. Knowing him, he'll probably figure out a way to dance to it anyway. That or he'll raid Gene’s CD collection even more.

He supposes that's what he deserves for asking Babe to come live with him. What's his is now Babe’s, and Gene will just have to deal with that.

Moving in with Babe will be a big step, but if it leads to more moments like this, it will definitely be worth it.

* * *

 

**_Heaven Helps the Man_ **

When Gene stumbles out of bed for his early morning shift, he assumes Babe must be in the bathroom.

His side of the bed is empty, but still warm. Everything except Babe’s feet burns like a furnace in bed, and the heat leaks into the comforters as much as it does Gene’s body. Without Babe, Gene feels exposed to the chilly autumn morning. He pulls the blanket tighter around him, allowing himself to soak in the silence for one moment longer. He never misses Louisiana more than in the cold weather.

Slowly, the noises of the morning fades into his hazy consciousness. He can still hear the echoes of his alarm clock in his ears, but more striking than that is the utter silence from the bathroom.

This is not normal. Babe is a mess early in the morning; Gene has woken up more than once to the sound of his boyfriend tripping and falling on his face while stumbling around like he’s had four too many whiskey tonics. Babe makes a racket because he can’t help it. The conspicuous silence, plus Babe’s absence from bed, has Gene sitting up despite his freezing skin’s protests.

He slips out of bed, bare feet making no sound on the carpeted floors, and wanders towards the bathroom. He pushes the door open to be greeted with a pitch-dark room. Babe isn’t there. (He has this thing about peeing in the dark; he confessed to Gene one drunken night that his older brothers used to tell him stories about “the hand in the toilet” and he’s never gotten over them. Gene sometimes thinks Babe needs therapy.)

In the silence of the bathroom, he suddenly becomes aware of another sound -- the steady thrum of music drifting from the living room.

Gene frowns as he slips into the hallway again. He can recognize a familiar beat, the sort of 80s techno sync that he and Babe would usually make fun of. The volume is turned down too low for him to have heard it from the bedroom, but as he approaches the noise grows clearer and clearer.

He rounds the corner to see Babe shimmying across the living room, coffee cup in one hand and half-eaten bagel in the other. He’s bopping to the beat, head bouncing up and down in a way that gives his bedhead a life of its own. He's still in his pajamas; his baggy t-shirt bears fresh coffee stains. When he dances into the coffee table, he comes perilously close to spilling his morning refreshment everywhere.

Gene isn't sure what he's more surprised at: the fact that Babe is up this early in the morning, or that he hasn't dropped that coffee onto the carpet already. He spends a few more minutes watching Babe thrust and sway with moves that would make Patrick Swayze proud before finally clearing his throat.

Babe starts; the coffee almost slips out of his hands again. He gapes at Gene like he's just been caught with his pants down, freezing in the middle of what promised to be a very impressive twist.

“Babe,” Gene mutters, wondering if he's still dreaming, “can I ask what the hell you're doing?”

“Well. See, that's actually. Well.” Babe’s doing a terrible job of acting like this is all a normal morning occurrence, but Gene will give him points for effort. “I made you coffee.”

Gene blinks at his disheveled boyfriend. “You… got up at the crack of dawn to make me coffee?”

“Yeah. I mean, you have to leave so early all the time, and I hardly get to see you in the mornings…” Babe scratches the back of his head. “I wanted to do something, ya know? Start your day off nice.”

“And the dancing…”

“I started falling asleep at the counter,” he admits sheepishly. “I thought it'd help if I got moving. It did, a bit.”

When Gene takes a few steps closer to Babe, he realizes that his eyes are dropping. His slumped posture has less to do with embarrassment and more with the struggle of keeping himself upright. Still, he's awake and holding coffee in his hands -- coffee that he brewed for Gene -- and of all the ways Gene could think to start his day, this is one of the sweetest.

He carefully plucks the coffee mug out of Babe’s hand and leans up to plant a kiss on the tip of Babe’s nose. He has to fight back a laugh when Babe’s face scrunched up.

 _“Cher,”_ he whispers, “go back to bed. Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

Babe’s lips quirk in a tired smile, and he obligingly begins to stumble back to bed. Gene watches him go for a handful of seconds that feel like eternities, before he shatters the quiet morning once more by calling out to him. _“Tu tends me tellement heureux!”_

Babe knows next to no French, but he can recognize the warmth brimming in Gene’s tone. He waves a hand over his shoulder. “Yeah. I know. Love you too, Gene.”

* * *

 

_**\+   Man, I Feel Like A Woman** _

If things really begin with Babe’s birthday party, they end in much the same fashion -- except now Gene is the focus of the party’s attention, and Babe is hanging off his arm like he was born to be there. Things are still mostly the same, though. Babe is still too enthusiastic and Gene has to reel him back from doing anything stupid. Their friends still love to party. Gene would still rather be at home.

He's convinced that the only thing keeping him around his own birthday party is the much-anticipated chocolate cake Renée and Spina spent the whole day working on. It's certainly not his boyfriend. Babe has been up and socializing since the moment he got here, and hasn't had a moment to spare for Gene since. Not half as outgoing, and reserved by nature, Gene couldn't throw himself into conversation with all of Babe’s ease.

As a result, he winds up sitting on the sidelines of his own party. It's not all that unpleasant. He nurses a beer cup, listens to music, and enjoys the chatter of his friends even if he doesn't have a part in it. Gene has always been a watcher; he observes, and takes delight in other peoples’ happiness.

(Maybe that's why it was so easy to fall in love with Babe -- he feels everything _intensely,_ from burning rage to unbridled joy. When he's happy, he glows like the brightest star in a pitch black sky, and Gene can't look away.)

He remains uninterrupted for a while, before Renée suddenly materializes beside him. Her hair is loose around her face, and she’s wearing a flowing white sundress accentuated with pastel flowers. There is a flush on her face that can’t all be due to alcohol. She loops her arms around Gene’s shoulders easily, the undercurrents of a laugh still in her voice when she says, “It’s time to get up now. We’ve got something to show you.”

Gene is intrigued despite himself. “I hope it’s cake.”

“It’s not.”

“Is it a present?”

“Sort of.”

“Tell me no one got another bouncy house.”

“Eugene, just go look,” Renée urges, pushing him out of his chair. Gene isn’t about to disagree with Renée when she’s in such a good mood, so he obligingly allows her to lead him across the park. This is where the night is lit up with fairy lights strung from trees, and music blares from the speakers someone has set up on top of a picnic table. All of this does little to surprise Gene. What does take him aback is the sight is his boyfriend dancing in the middle of a ring of their friends.

Babe is breaking out all his best moves, jamming out to the blasting melody. This is one of Babe’s favorite songs, Gene recognizes, and he can’t help the wide smile that breaks across his face when Babe pulls off a move that shouldn’t look good, but does. The crowd cheers, and Gene’s voice is among them. His boyfriend is a nerd, and he couldn’t love him more.

It must be his voice that draws Babe’s attention to him, because he turns around and his eyes light up. The grin that lights up his face is blinding. Gene doesn’t realize what crazy idea has popped into his head until Babe already has hold of his hands and is dragging him away from Renée.

“Babe -- what are you doing?” Gene exclaims. Babe’s grip on his hands is too tight to pull away from, and he’s already starting to bounce around. The moment Gene realizes what’s going on, he fixes his boyfriend with an incredulous stare.

“Come on!” Babe laughs. “Just this once!”

“You know I can’t dance!”

“Anyone can dance! Just follow my lead, Gene!” Babe does a few more complicated foot movements and then a hip waggle which leaves Gene feeling light headed. When Babe catches his wide eyes, his grin widens.

“Come on!” he encourages; and then he lets go. Gene is free to do whatever he wants, whether it be run away, or… or…

He _could_ run away, but where’s the fun in that?

Instead, he allows his body to take over his brain. The next thing he knows, he’s jumping along with Babe to the beat, his limbs moving of their own accord. A bubbling sense of euphoria fills him as Babe breaks into delighted laughter, and he finds his own face aching from the force of his smile. He follows Babe’s example, swaying and jumping up and down to the beat. As their friends break into a round of cheers, Babe suddenly twirls him around.

When he catches Gene against him, there is a hand on his hip and another on his back. He pulls Gene close just long enough to press a kiss to his forehead before allowing them to part again. A peal of laughter escapes Gene, and he dances with a little more enthusiasm.

It’s the first birthday he’s spent with Babe being his, and if Gene is being honest he can’t imagine anything nicer. He loves this; he can’t remember the last time he was this happy.

It’s all because of his friends, but the most credit has to go to Babe. Babe, who makes him smile early in the morning, late at night, even when he’s got nothing to smile about himself. Babe, who’s not afraid to be goofy and enthusiastic and is too damn stubborn to let Gene fade into the background.

Babe, who he loves so much it makes him do crazy things. Like dancing in front of all of their friends. Like suddenly grabbing Babe by the hips as the song ends and tugging him forward, locking their lips with each other.

As their friends burst into another round of whistles and catcalls, Gene revels in the warmth that spreads throughout his entire body, and wishes this moment would never end.


End file.
